He and I Don't Get On
by esking
Summary: A mysterious man appears on the side of the road, one whom Castiel is far from keen to talk to. "I prayed for you twenty years ago! When Mary needed-" "What about our mom?" Chapter 2: The truth was, Sam and Dean had seen the Doctor once before, and had more fun than they'd ever ad in their lives.
1. Chapter 1

"Cas, help!" Dean grunted as he hefted the man he and Sam were carrying onto the pitted wooden table.

Castiel backed away, eyes wide in what Dean might have taken for fear. "Get that man out of here NOW."

"Why?" asked Sam. "Who is he?"

The man gasped and sat up. His eyes fell on Castiel. "Oh, hello, Castiel," he said in a British accent. "You've got a new hair cut." His smile slipped. "I don't like it."

"It's a new vessel, Doctor," said Castiel grudgingly. Dean and Sam stared at them.

"Oh," said the Doctor, nodding so his poofy bangs flopped back and forth. "That would explain it."

Castiel turned to Sam and Dean. "Where did you find him?"

"Wanderin' down the highway," said Dean. "He said your name 'bout a dozen times and then collapsed."

Castiel turned his piercing blue eyes upon the Doctor. "You need to leave. Now." He walked away from them, over to the wall.

The Doctor vaulted off the table and stood a few feet behind him. "I came for you, Castiel. I heard your message."

"My _message!_" Castiel snarled, whirling about. "I prayed for you _twenty years ago!_ When Mary needed-" he broke off with a cautious look at Sam and Dean, who were suddenly showing much more interest in the conversation.

"What about our mom?" Sam asked.

The Doctor sighed sadly. "Time vortex. It muddles timelines. But you know that, don't you."

"I know what you have told me," said Castiel stiffly. "I do not need to take your word for it."

"For a man of faith, you're distressingly cynical," said the Doctor.

"Be that as it may, you need to leave now."

The Doctor bounced on the balls of his feet. "Well, that's the problem, isn't it. You see, I'd really love to, but I can't just now. My TARDIS is malfunctioning." He grinned in a boyish fashion. "You're stuck with me, Mr. Angel." He spun about again and hopped on the table, crossing his legs. "I met an angel while I was away. Well, hundreds of angels actually. There was one called Angel Bob. Poor fellow."

"Uh, Cas," said Dean. "Who the hell is this guy?"

Without taking his eyes off the Doctor, Castiel said, "An old…friend. If that is what he can be called."

"An old friend from _when?_" asked Dean. "Before you raised me from Hell, I thought you had stayed in Heaven."

"He is from the last time I walked the Earth," said Castiel. "The year before the first year of the Lord."

"Yes," the Doctor piped up. "There was an awkward matter of an unexpected pregnancy. Partly my fault," he sucked air through his teeth, "sorry."

Castiel rolled his eyes.

Distinctly not amused, Sam looked at Castiel and asked, "What did you mean you prayed to him about our mom?"

That wiped the silly expression off the Doctor's face. He suddenly looked much older, and his eyes had become sad and empty. "It seems I can never apologize enough."

"_For what?_"

The Doctor smiled a tiny smile up at the two boys. He barely came up to Sam's nose, and yet Sam felt again as though he were eight years old, looking up at the adults who were the masters of his fate. "The Winchester Boys. Oh, they tales they'll tell about you two. I never thought I'd see you again."

"Again?" said Dean.

When the Doctor next spoke, it was to Castiel. "I heard your prayers, Castiel, and I came for Mary. I told her the truth, perhaps more than I should have. She understood. She was very brave."

"They're always brave," said Castiel.

"Mary Winchester's death was a fixed point in time," the Doctor continued. "No matter how desperately I tried to change it. I tried to take her away, I jumped her forward in time. But we always came back to the nursery." His eyes fell upon Sam. "She made her decision, in the end. And I'm sorry."

The three pairs of eyes which watched him ranged in emotion from pity, to shame, to sheer rage.

"You mean," said Dean through clenched teeth, "that you could have saved our mom?"

"No," said the Doctor. "I knew even before I tried that I would fail."

_ "That isn't what matters," said Mary gently, pressing her hand to the Doctor's cheek. "What matters is you tried." She looked away across the clearing, where John, eight-year-old Dean and four-year-old Sam were clustered around the campfire, sharpening their blades while hotdogs roasted over the flames. "What matters is that I know they're still alive."_

_ "What's the point of having a time machine if I can't save the people I love?" asked the Doctor._

_ Mary only smiled, and stepped back inside the TARDIS. "It's time, my friend. You have to take me home."_

_ "Just one thing first!" the Doctor cried, much more lively. He bounded up to the console and threw a lever. "I'm taking you to the Forest of Nyamh. It's _beautiful_ this time of year. They have flowers that glow in the dark! Oh, you'll love it, Mary, it's-"_

_ Mary laid a gentle hand on his arm. and smiled up at him, but her eyes were full of tears. "Thank you, Doctor. For everything."_

_ "Please," said the Doctor when they landed in the Winchesters' front yard. "Is there nothing I can do?"_

_ "You've done so much already." She stared up the path. At the door, though, she turned back to find him still watching her. "There is one thing."_

_ "Anything."_

_ Mary gestured toward the house. "Watch out for them. Please."_

_ The Doctor nodded. "Always."_

Dean and Sam still glared suspiciously at him, but the Doctor had felt Castiel in his mind, and knew the angel understood. And that the Winchesters never would.

"I heard your prayer, Castiel," said the Doctor. "I did all I could."

"Oh my God…" said Dean, realization dawning across his unshaven face. "You're not…God?"

The Doctor laughed. "No. No, I'm not God. He and I don't get on."


	2. Chapter 2

Dean was about ready to explode. A kid could only disassemble, clean, and reassemble a gun so many times. He was actually getting blisters. That had to be a new record.

The sunrise marked day six of his incarceration, and left the possible prospect of at least another week trapped here before Dad came home. From the bedroom he could hear the faint "_neeeeeeoww….vroom! Vroom!" _of Sammy playing with his racecars. _At least one of us is happy, _Dean thought bitterly. He remembered a time when he was so easily entertained, so innocent. Back when Mom was alive, he had spent hours upon hours orchestrating epic battles between racecars and green plastic soldiers, sending them catapulting down the stairs to their doom or pitting them against each other in sudden-death competitions of balance on the railing of Sammy's crib.

But he was older and wiser now, no longer a child. Almost nine years old. He knew about the dark and evil things in the world now. He was a warrior.

He was reminded of this only a moment later when his hand flew instinctively to the shotgun on the table beside him as he heard a knock on the motel room door.

Dean's stomach clenched and his grip on the gun tightened further. He watched the door with narrowed eyes. Whatever came through there, he was gonna kill it dead before it had time to take one step. He thought about calling out to Sammy, ordering him to lock the door and hide under the bed, but didn't want to alert the intruder to the imminent ambush.

However, a moment later, "Dean?" an unfamiliar voice with a strange accent called. "Dean, let me in."

"Get the hell out of here," snarled Dean through the door in a forced low voice he hoped sounded like his dad. "Unless you want your head blown off."

"Well, _that's _not very polite."

From the other side of the chipped wood, Dean heard a high-pitched buzzing, and then, to his horror, the handle turned and the door swung inward. Dean found himself at that moment facing the oddest man he had ever seen in his life.

He was quite tall, with floppy brown hair that hung into his face. He had a strange jacket beneath which were visible strange red suspenders and, perhaps oddest of all, a matching bowtie. Dean was too surprised to shoot.

"Dean Winchester!" said the man in a reedy, boisterous voice, so different from Dad's low, rough grunt. "You're shorter than I remember, pleasure to see you again." He held out a hand, at the same time pocketing a strange, small silver tube.

At the gesture, however, Dean's hunter instincts kicked back in and he stepped back, gun cocked.

The strange man's eager smile slipped. He raised his hands level with his head and watched Dean with piercing grey eyes that made Dean feel as though he was being x-rayed. Dean's internal code about strangers was strict and irascible, yet with all his strangeness, Dean did not detect the slightest hint of malice or danger from this man. Still, monsters could be clever.

He relaxed half an inch. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

The grin was back in an instant. "I'm the Doctor!"

"Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor." The man took a step closer. "I'm here to have _fun!_ Go get your brother."

Dean stayed where he was, shotgun still raised. "How do I know I can trust you? I don't even know who you are."

The Doctor fixed him with a funny look. "Where's the adventure without a little mystery, eh? Come on, let's go have fun." And with that, he pushed past a bewildered Dean and into the bedroom.

"Hello, Sam!" Dean heard as he dashed inside too.

A mess of matchbox cars, chipped Hot Wheels, and mini airplanes was scattered across the ugly flowered bedspread, and in the midst of it, Sam sat cross-legged, looking perfectly content.

"Stay away from him." The gun was very heavy for such small arms, but Dean had insisted on this particular one. He'd envisioned himself on multiple occasions as the bad-ass soldier-of-fortune from the movies. He'd just never envisioned himself as the bad-ass standing up to a man resembling an overblown cartoon character.

Also, in his daydreams, his quarries had never completely ignored him and proceeded to begin playing with his baby brother.

As easily as though they'd been playing for hours, the Doctor and Sam began a fierce battle of Hot Wheels, pushing them along the bedspread, smashing them into each other and sending them flying onto the floor. Sam giggled madly, a sound Dean hadn't heard in what felt like years. And then the Doctor did something which should have earned him a bloody hole through his forehead. He picked up one of the miniature airplanes, a Boeing 747 Pastor Jim had given Sam for his third birthday, and pointed the silver cylinder at it. The thing emitted a high-pitched buzzing and glowed green at one the end.

"What did you do?" Dean asked. He had lowered his gun to his side unconsciously.

The Doctor grinned slyly and tossed the plane straight up into the air. Dean and Sam followed it with their eyes.

As the little plane reached the peak of its ascent, its nose tipped downward and it began to fall, but instead of plopping onto the bed, it pulled up out of the dive an inch above the comforter and shot back up toward the ceiling fan, made a loop-the-loop and wove through the fan's blades. Sammy shrieked with delight and clapped his chubby hands together as the plane made a spectacular crash landing on the bed. Dean laughed in spite of himself, set the gun on the floor, and climbed onto the bed beside his brother.

Dean was quite positive that this Doctor was some type of witch and, by any rights, shouldn't even be breathing by now, but he knew with equal certainty that he didn't ever want this man to leave. Dean hadn't seen Sammy this happy since he was six months old. Since before the fire.

Hours passed, but they felt like minutes, spent cheering jubilantly as the airplanes threaded needles through circles made with arms and hands, landed delicately atop Sam's head, and zipped in elaborate patterns all across the ceiling. Cars and trucks shot off ramps and jumps of their own accord, drove along arms and shoulders making the boys giggle and squirm. Dean's stomach hurt from laughing and his cheeks from grinning.

But at last the Doctor glanced at a gold wristwatch and pushed himself up with an apologetic grimace.

"Where are you going?" Sam asked, disappointment clear on his face.

This question, however, lit the Doctor's face up with another smile. "Outer space."

Sam straightened. "Can we come?" he asked eagerly.

"Not today," said the Doctor. "But someday. Someday I'll take you up and I'll show you the stars."

Sam's eyes were wide and shining.

"But right now," the Doctor continued. "Right now you and your brother have a job to do for me." Dean and Sam nodded vehemently. "I need you to be the_ best_ human beings in the world. Can you do that?" They nodded again. "Excellent!" He clapped his hands together and spun a 360 on the heels of his grey boots and returned to face them looking slightly disoriented. "Now, where's the door got to? Ah, yes, there it is. I thought I might have moved." He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially to the boys, "They do that, you know. Never trust a door." He whipped around again and strode out of the bedroom and to the front door with Sam and Dean at his heels. "Right, got to get out of here before your father finds me." He pulled the door open and stepped outside.

"Why?" Sam and Dean asked in unison before he could shut it again.

The Doctor's lips quirked up on one side, and his eyes sparkled.

"He and I don't get on."


End file.
